The Space Between
by lookingforthestars
Summary: Adelaide is torn between her past and present lives. Which is the real one? (Set after 1x09, just a one-shot for now.)


**I can't believe next week is the finale! I fell in love with this show out of nowhere and desperately hope there will be a second season. This is set post-1x09. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy it!**

For reasons she does not understand, Adelaide dreads telling Houdini much more than Doyle. She should not tell either of them, of course—it will only put their lives, and hers, in danger. But her new colleagues are masters of human psychology, and they seem to take great interest in reading her. When she sees them again, they will know within seconds that everything is different.

She can scarcely believe herself that it's true. It happened so quickly that she might have dreamed it, like the necrophone. But the rapid beating in her chest even hours later assures her that it was real. Her husband—the man around whom her entire life revolved, the man who was cruelly ripped away from her—is alive.

Houdini was right, as he so frustratingly often was. Adelaide abandoned her search for answers, fearing that she had not known Benjamin as well as she believed. A pang of guilt bolted through her. To have doubted her husband that way, even for a moment, felt like a masterful betrayal.

She shook the thought from her head. _He_ had betrayed her, scarred her, left her behind. Whatever his reasons, that damage would not quickly be undone.

From the bottom of her jewelry box, Adelaide once again fished out her wedding ring, as she'd done countless times since Benjamin's death. A comforting token that reminded her of their life together, simultaneously ensuring her that her memories were real and providing motivation in her search for his killer. It seemed so foreign to her now. The silver band belonged to Penelope Graves; another woman in another life. A woman that no longer existed.

The constable jumped in her seat as a knock sounded on the door of her cabin. She'd hidden as long as she could, but it was time to return to the ship and she couldn't very well remain behind in North America, no matter how tempting that seemed at the moment. Adelaide dropped the ring back safely into its hiding place and stood up from the vanity, crossing over to the door in three steps.

Her hand hesitated around the doorknob before she twisted it open to reveal a familiar face, armed with tea and a pastry on a silver tray.

"I brought you breakfast," Houdini announced with a hint of pride in his voice, but his cheerful demeanor dropped quickly when he saw her expression. "Are you sick? You didn't come downstairs this morning, and you look a little pale—."

"I'm fine," she said more sharply than she intended, standing in tense silence before she thought to relieve him of the tray, which she placed on a round table. Houdini didn't appear fazed, just stared at her curiously as she smoothed out her dress and straightened her back. "Perhaps this trip has just left me…a bit weary."

She turned away from him, busying herself with transferring tea from the pot into a cup with a faded floral pattern. She'd assumed that Houdini would take it as his cue to excuse himself, but he didn't move.

"Adelaide."

He spoke her name so clearly, so full of concern and free of agenda, that it rattled around deep in her chest. Houdini was a cold reader by trade and a very enthusiastic student of her personally. Her first instinct was correct—it would be impossible to keep this away from his prying eyes.

Complicating matters further was the reality that she _wanted_ to tell him. Adelaide Stratton was a lie. Nearly everything Houdini and Doyle knew about her was a carefully fabricated falsehood. But more and more of the truth broke through the surface every day, yearning to be heard. She dropped the lid back onto the teapot, cringing at the clanging sound it created, and took a long sip from the cup in a weak attempt to calm her heightened nerves.

"You met with Walbridge, didn't you? What did he tell you?"

Adelaide's hunch was confirmed; Houdini had sent that telegram for her, knowing she was reluctant to do it herself. She wasn't sure whether to be furious that he interfered with her business or touched that he was putting forth such an effort to assist her.

The clatter of porcelain startled her, and she realized that it was own hands shaking the cup only after he had stepped forward and closed his palms around them. Adelaide swallowed, a bit thrown by his sudden proximity. She put up little resistance as he took the tea from her fingers and rested it back on the tray. "You can tell me, Adelaide. Let me help you."

She didn't respond, the words on her tongue but somehow still so elusive. Houdini sighed, the first syllable of her name rolling out before she stopped it, unable to bear the sympathy in his voice any longer.

"Benjamin is alive," she blurted.

Houdini blinked once, twice, and retreated from her. "What?"

"He's alive," Adelaide repeated, not quite sure where to go from there. She watched Houdini carefully for a reaction, but he showed nothing aside from the expected surprise. "His death was faked. All of it was faked."

The magician stared at her incredulously, dragging his hand across his mouth. His eyes narrowed, and it dawned on the constable rather suddenly what he might think—that she'd known all along, involved him and Doyle in this dangerous mess and played them both for fools.

"I found out last night," she continued abruptly, answering his unasked question. "I went to meet with Walbridge, only it wasn't Walbridge. It was…my husband."

Houdini appeared to pause his shock, his tone lecturing as he said, "You went alone? I would have—."

"Yes, I know." She didn't have the energy to remind him for the hundredth time that she was a trained officer of the law with a very effective weapon. "But I needed to do it on my own."

Houdini fell quiet, his eyes trained rather intensely on the patterned wallpaper behind her. "Why?" he asked eventually.

She had few answers to that herself, but Adelaide did her best to cobble together the facts as she knew them. "Benjamin was working as an undercover agent among the anarchists. He was discovered and had to disappear, for both of our sakes. They killed Nigel Pennington."

"Where is he now?"

Instinctively, Adelaide's fingers traveled to her left hand, rubbing the empty spot that once carried a symbol of their marriage. "Gone. Again." Her breath hitched slightly. "He promised that he would come home when he was done."

"Done what?"

"I don't know. Eliminating the threat, I suppose."

They lapsed into silence once again, both of their gazes burning holes in the floor below them. Adelaide regretted telling him. Benjamin had asked her to stop her investigation, for her own safety, but having three people involved would make that exponentially more difficult.

Houdini's eyes traveled back up to her face, searching for…something, she wasn't sure what. "And you?"

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "What about me?"

"This is life-changing information, Addy. You must be…" He shrugged as if his vocabulary had failed him. "I don't know. How are you?"

There was a softness in his voice that only seemed to reveal itself when they were alone. She'd always thought that perhaps they connected as two grieving souls—before the death of his beloved mother, even, Adelaide sensed that he mourned a great loss—but it was selfish of her to compare her grief to his now. His heartbreak was genuine and understandable. She should be celebrating. But she found she didn't quite know how she felt. How she was _supposed_ to feel.

Adelaide's thoughts were drowned by the sudden advancement of Houdini's body toward hers. It might not have been strictly appropriate, but the constable realized she needed that embrace—that comfort—more than anything she'd ever needed before. She sank into it, cursing herself for trembling again like a damsel in distress. But he knew her better, respected her. He would understand.

"I'm sorry," he whispered against her temple as his arms tightened around her. She wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that. Sorry that she had been lied to? Sorry that she'd been subjected to an eternity of unnecessary torment? Sorry that despite her best efforts, she was another silly woman who'd been fooled by a man?

All of those things were accurate, she supposed.

It was patently wrong to think about the last time he'd said those words to her, barely a few days earlier, but it didn't stop the memory of their shared kiss from flooding through her mind with a thousand other thoughts that clouded and overwhelmed her faculties. The life she'd known, the life she'd given up on when Benjamin died, felt too far away to be real, so impossibly different from everything that was right in front of her now. She clutched his shoulders more tightly, searching for some kind of stability, a beacon in the storm.

And then he released her, his hands lingering on her waist before dropping. "Doyle needs to be with his children, but I can stay here with you, if you—."

Adelaide shook her head, cutting him off. "No. I'm coming back to England. Benjamin was convinced that being close to him was unsafe, and I'm going to try to respect his wishes."

Houdini nodded simply, understanding in his pale eyes. "We're leaving in an hour." She stood frozen in her place as he headed toward the door, his fingers circling around the doorknob before he stopped and looked at her. "We'll do whatever we can to help you, Adelaide. Whatever you need. I hope you know that."

Many of the things in Adelaide Stratton's life were a lie. But that, she realized, was not. "I know."


End file.
